


Dappled

by keyboardclicks



Category: This Body's Not Big Enough for Both of Us - Edgar Cantero
Genre: Gen, Pre-Canon, be the change you want to see in the world, i saw there were no fics for this so HERE I AM, it could be post canon tbh, it doesn't really matter, maybe? - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-20
Updated: 2019-01-20
Packaged: 2019-10-13 14:12:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17489513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keyboardclicks/pseuds/keyboardclicks
Summary: Zooey wanted to paint her nails.  It got a little messy.





	Dappled

If someone held an official event to measure who in the world had the shortest attention span, Zooey would not win because she and Adrian would miss the entire thing. On the way there she would notice something interesting on the street, be it a cool window display or a woman with amazing tits, and suddenly Adrian would find himself explaining to a sales lady that no he hadn’t actually meant to buy the pygmy marmoset he was holding and he needed to return it immediately, thank you and goodbye.

She was like a child; put something colorful in her range of vision and she’d be reaching for it as fast as her queer little hands could manage. Having met with more psychologists than anyone ever had a right to at their age, A.Z. Kimrean was well aware of the “shiny! colorful! must be food!” instinct that hadn’t quiet been whittled away from their monkey brain during evolution. It was the same instinct that made stupid teenagers eat pods of laundry detergent, a phenomena which briefly made Adrian consider whether survival of the fittest would be such a bad concept in modern society. (He quickly remembered that, were that the case, he would never have made it past infancy.)

What caught Zooey’s attention lately was makeup. Bright lipsticks in jewel-toned containers. Shimmering eyeshadows packed tightly into different shaped pallets. Mosaic displays of glitter-filled nail polish. She’d stop them on the street to stare at window displays like a child from an old Christmas movie, wanting desperately to buy a toy on display but knowing that their mother is sick with something period-appropriate and incurable and all of their money will go to her medical bills because this event has shattered their childlike sense of wonder and innocence and they now know the cruel realities of life.

“Makeup is just a tool to make women feel like their natural appearances aren’t worthy of being seen and think that in order to be considered beautiful they need to have flawless skin and traditionally western features but _damn_ if it isn’t _pretty!_ ” said Zooey after some time of staring at the most recently encountered window display.

“All that’s never stopped you from hooking up with makeup-wearing women with traditionally western features,” observed Adrian with a sly comment out the side of their mouth. He felt their shoulders shrug.

“What can I say? I can’t resist a pretty face, natural or otherwise. And natural faces are totally beautiful but after you see enough porn and enough cake-faced sex-workers, your body starts to be kind of selective about what gets you going. I mean sure, I can see someone who isn’t wearing makeup and definitely appreciate their beauty, but at this point it’s kind of a Pavlovian Reaction to get horny when I see someone wearing the whole nine-yards of a beauty routine.”

A hand slapped over their mouth, which was generally a sign that Zooey was talking much to loudly about a much too inappropriate subject in a place where neither of those things was acceptable, such as a quiet but populated street made up of retail establishments. Since licking your own hand didn’t tend to have the reaction of automatic disgust that would work on most other people, Zooey chose to bite the palm instead. This worked, but Adrian then flicked Zooey under her eye and she growled, but at least got the point. People passing on the street gave the odd looks Kimrean had by then grown accustomed to, seeing this odd exchange play out in real time.

“We’re not buying any makeup.”

“I wasn’t asking!” Adrian flicked her again. “Ow! Fine, right, right, I’m being quiet, I’m being quiet. And I wasn’t asking to buy makeup, calm your tits.”

“I’m very sure that those are yours.”

“But I mean, everyone who meets us already thinks we’re either a butch lesbian or a gay guy, so what damage could makeup really do to our rep?”

Not for the first time, Adrian felt compelled to buy some sort of bluetooth earpiece and use that as an excuse for why he was constantly talking to himself. “It’s messy and unnecessary,” he answered. 

“All the best things in life are! Sex, drugs, rock’n’roll...” A brief pause. “...pie eating contests…”

Kimrean took a collective pause, then suddenly reached forward, pulled open the door, and stepped inside before Adrian could stop them. He had just managed to hiss the words, “Zooey, _no!_ ” when a young sales girl greeted them with the classic retail smile.

“Hi! Is there anything I can help you find?”

“Nope! I’m just browsing,” Zooey assured. She considered commenting on the girl’s beauty, but her age was too unclear and could have been on the high end of -teen that hadn’t quite broken legal parameters, and so she instead turned them wordlessly down a random aisle to the left. Adrian fought for leg control and tried to turn them towards the door, but Zooey’s stubborn will won out.

“You don’t even know what you’re looking for!” Adrian hissed.

“Nope! That’s kinda the definition of browsing, Aid. Now be a good brother and can it so I can enjoy this.”

And he did. He canned it and went into what Zooey called his “thinking corner”, because he really didn’t want to be here and if Zooey wanted to play at being a teenager again and run around putting stupid stuff on their face then fine, he’d endure it and then trash the stupid stuff later when she wasn’t paying attention. For now, though, he was going to indulge in the novel he had been reading and speculate about what the ending. It was fairly obvious, the story being a relatively formulaic piece of detective fiction, but considering what the case could have been like in reality was an interesting pastime. Because in real life clues weren’t presented in neat little packages at convenient times for the plot to advance, no matter what Zooey thought. In real life people messed up the crime scenes and corrupt police officers hid evidence that the detective may never even learn about. That little tidbit that the police chief had let slip thirty one pages ago in the book could have just never happened if the story was real, and that meant that nobody would have ever found out about wait okay arms were full hands were full what was he holding and why did it feel heavy and fragile-

“ _Zooey!”_ Kimrean’s mouth hissed, both siblings now suddenly aware that they were holding upwards of a dozen nail polish bottles cradled in their left arm and hand. Glittering pots in all manner of colors balanced precariously atop one another, threatening to fall and shatter at the slightest movement. Zooey as usual was taking no notice to the danger and reached for another bit of treasure, but Adrian pulled the arm back and pressed it carefully over what they already had.

“Christ, alright, this is enough.”

“But that orange one has glitter!”

“ _This is enough_.”

“C’moooooooooon-”

But Adrian had already walked them to the counter. The clinking and clattering of glass on fake wood startled the cashier’s gaze up from her phone and to the confusingly androgynous customer standing there. She took a moment to take in Kimrean’s form and then, remembering herself, smiled and asked if they had found everything they were looking for.

“Yes, thank you,” said Adrian flatly as he pulled out their wallet. It was pointless to hope that Zooey wouldn’t say anything, and so he didn’t. That way when she made the following comment, he wasn’t disappointed.

“Damn you’re hot! Oh, but I shouldn’t say stuff like that because you’re being paid right now and are obligated to be nice to me so you don’t get complaints and lose your job. Capitalism sure is a bitch!” She glanced at the young lady’s hands, which were holding a bottle each of nail polish that she had begun to scan before being stopping, stunned, at her customer’s sudden change in demeanor. “Besides, you’re clearly not into girls anyway so I shouldn’t bother.”

The girl didn’t move. Her mouth flapped wordlessly a couple of times before closing tightly. She scanned the first bottle, then the second, then finally opened her mouth again and said, “How-”

“Unless you’re in porn, nobody who sleeps with women keeps their nails that long,” Zooey answered, indicating the woman’s talon-like manicure. “Don’t get me wrong, it looks great! But it gets in the way of the fun.” And she made a lewd gesture with their fingers.

Adrian sighed. “If this is making you uncomfortable, feel free to kick me out. Even ban me from the store, if you can.”

The woman clearly had no idea how to respond, and so said absolutely nothing as she scanned and bagged the remainder of Zooey’s purchase, which was paid for with Adrian’s money. They took the bag and, with a wink of Zooey’s lime green eye and a mischievous grin, turned to take their leave while Zooey called over her shoulder, “If you change your mind and cut your nails, hit me up! Z. Kimrean, Private Eye!”

Zooey sang the entire walk home, occasionally twirling around with their arms akimbo and nearly smacking random passersby with her shopping bag.

_“I feel pretty_

_“Oh, so pretty_

_“I feel pretty and witty and gay~”_

Adrian, being actually concerned with getting them home, overrode Zooey’s improvised dancing when necessary to ensure they took the right turns towards the current dwelling/office and also didn’t step into oncoming traffic. Despite any evidence to the contrary, they were not in a musical and streets did not become conveniently empty when one decided to sing in the middle of them.

By the time they got back to their building Zooey had moved from show tunes to classics, giving a performance of “Oh, Pretty Woman” while Adrian fiddled to get the key into the lock. Zooey’s musical habits had acquired a steady stream of compliments from the old lady who lived to their left, and a torrent of complaints from the retired biker who lived below them. It was impossible to determine which of these she enjoyed more.

Adrian dropped the bag and hung up their hat and waistcoat. Zooey picked the bag back up, crossed the room to their desk, and dumped the bottles out on top of it to examine them in the apartment’s low light.

“Alright!” she exclaimed, rubbing their hands together. “Where should we start?”

The fact that Kimrean was ambidextrous did not stop Zooey’s first attempt at painting her nails from looking like the work of a kindergartner. Having bought fifteen different colors, six of which included glitter, she was determined to use all of them in her first sitting despite only having ten fingers. To her, the best kind of art was loud and obvious and used as much color as possible and so of course that extended to nails. By the time she finished only one nail was monochromatic; the right ring finger, just for something different.

“Are you done yet? Because by now there's more polish than nail.”

Zooey blew on the wet paint until they were light headed, then examined her work. The pictures she had attempted had turned into wonderful bits of abstract art, there was polish all over their fingers, and judging by the amount of stains she had gotten on the hardwood desk it was going to smell vaguely of ethyl acetate until the end of time.

“Yep! Mission: success!”

Adrian looked neutrally down at his and Zooey’s hands. It was like a children’s craft project, like when they were four and Zooey had taken their foster mother’s expensive acrylic paints from her studio and used them to make pictures on the wall in their bedroom. It had gotten all over them, on their face and under their nails and in their hair. They were found in the bathroom, Adrian crying and trying to scrub the color from his skin, and when he was asked why he did that he answered truthfully, “I didn’t do it!"

He’d been told not to blame his actions on imaginary friends, and didn’t get dessert that night. Zooey threw a temper tantrum and they got spanked.

Zooey quickly discovered that although she enjoyed painting her nails, waiting for them to dry was a completely different story. One never considered how often their nails scraped against things until they were trying to prevent it, and in the span of ten minutes Kimrean had smeared bright colors on two of Adrian’s books, Zooey’s acoustic guitar, a bag of weed, a hand pipe, and the television remote. Removing it would prove impossible since they hadn’t bought any acetone, and Adrian didn’t dare broach the idea because he honestly feared that Zooey would drink it. So it would appear that their world was going to lose a tad of it’s Noir Detective feel in exchange for random splashes of color on any object within reach.

“Hey, Aidy?” Zooey said, pulling her brother from his thoughts without diverting her own gaze from her chosen television program.

“Mm?”

“Thanks for letting me do this.” For emphasis she wiggled her fingers, now each a mangled mess of smeared polish and bits of glitter. Adrian shrugged and closed his eye to block out the television’s flickering light. It was an old set, but less in the “cool vintage” way and more in the “someone was throwing it out on their front lawn so we took it because it was free” way, and sometimes the picture flickered in a way that gave him a headache.

“You would have even if I fought you. I know by now how pointless it is to try and stop you.”

Left hand came over to nudge right shoulder. “Still. You could have. I can think of a dozen ways you could have stopped me. So thanks for not doing that.”

Adrian shrugged again. “You’re welcome. Now shut up, and let me think in peace.”

Zooey laughed. “Dickhead.”

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to explore the less crime-packed moments of A.Z.'s life and see what their sibling dynamic is like in quieter circumstances, so this seemed like a good place to start.


End file.
